Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 5 2005, 07:45 PM

Hi all! In my opinion, Europa explorer must be cheap and simple.

It must consist of 5 parts - 2 orbiters, 3 small and robust landers, and 3 nuclear and termonuclear bombs. I think that 10 Kt - 100 kt - 1 Mgt sequence is optimal.


First orbiter is robust, high protected from radioactivity, armed device. On high orbite over Europe
With simple and primitive long focused camera, laser-radar. It must to spectacle and record all nuclear explosion parametres.
has also a radio recever from landers.

second orbiter is orbiting low over the Europe. It must to fly over epicenter of nuke and drop lander to measure and see all.
To defend more complex second orbiter from radioactivity rays of nuclear explosion, we struck and explode a nuke in another side of Europe

Why nukes? Because it reveal all. First one, we"ll have a great quake of Europe. And can record all seismic infomation without landers.
next one. we can to melt ice and see a clear water - just hollow in the crust!!!

at 3 rd.

We dont need a special lander. If we can melt great hollow in crust - we'll have a liquid water to catch our lander! We dont need airbags, rockets. Just an robust "lander" like small susmarine!!

4 th. we ll have great cloud of water vapour and ice to take from there any chemical information.

Posted by: Decepticon Dec 5 2005, 07:51 PM

Bada BOOM Bada BING ehh!?

Posted by: dvandorn Dec 5 2005, 08:05 PM

I have to admit, my first reaction to using thermonuclear devices to punch holes in Europa's crust (thereby potentially harming any possible biota within their spheres of destruction) is... well... disgust.

Besides, liquid water wouldn't last for very long up against the vacuum of space that exists at the surface. An ice crust would develop awfully quickly -- you'd still need a way to punch through it with your submarine. Granted, it would be thinner than the natural crust, but it would still propose an obstacle.

Finally, the ice crust seems to be kilometers thick in most places. Just how deep of a hole you think you can dig with a nuclear weapon? Especially one that explodes above the surface? If you want maximum penetration from your nuclear hole, you'll need to bury the weapon about half as deep as the hole you want to make (the "hole" being a spherical void that would be vaporized by the blast and shock effects). That leads you back to ways of drilling or melting down into the crust to place your bomb.

All in all, while it's not the worst idea in the world, I think you'd need to work out all of these details before seriously proposing it...

-the other Doug

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 5 2005, 08:06 PM

not just for for fun, :-) but it can to help in 3 aims:

1. soft landing in water and free way to depths of ocean
2. seismic measurements
3. chemical analises

Some risk of radioactive pollution is not great.

Posted by: mike Dec 5 2005, 08:12 PM

Nuclear bombs are complicated. Just use a giant sawblade and cut Europa in half. Then every layer will be exposed indefinitely and everything can be analyzed quite easily. If you really want to, you can also put a giant torch on the probe and melt the moon back together.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 5 2005, 08:19 PM

I know, that my proposition is sounds like provocation, but is not provocation. :-)

I dont know how thick may be new ice crust, and you also. :-) thin ice is not a such problem.






I can place up bombs sequentally. One by one. If crust kilometers thick, in closest 100 years we cant look in that ocean. Just forget this.
If we"ll use bombs to measure thick of ice crust it - its better for us to know that now. and forget europa ocean.




we can explode bombs one by one. hot water quckly melts ice and weakens its structure.




I dont know how it serious, but now I cant see another way.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 5 2005, 08:25 PM

have you read this? :-)

http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html

Posted by: JRehling Dec 5 2005, 08:31 PM

You would only get #2.

Liquid water does not exist at zero atmospheric pressure no matter what temperature you make it. Any ice which was vaporized would be gas. Any which was not would be solid. No liquid.

The crust is far too thick for a hydrogen bomb to access the bottom. The crater would have to be about 20 km deep and therefore about 150 km wide. Even the largest Soviet H-bomb tests were far, far smaller than that.

No one would trust chemical analysis performed on a place where a hydrogen bomb had just exploded. You would, to say the least, alter the local chemistry.

I confess, I have thought of this idea before (maybe I read it somewhere else before I thought of it). It doesn't work.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Dec 5 2005, 08:57 PM

Why use a nuclear bomb, which would literally never get off the ground from the amount of protests ("We're nuking other worlds now too?!"), when a natural space rock directed with a rocket engine would do.

In either event, though, I would prefer not to wipe out any potential life forms on Europa. Scanning the ice crust for organisms may do what we want outside of directly swimming in that alien ocean.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 5 2005, 09:01 PM

thickness of Europa ice is not clear, I know only estimations and speculations on base of Galileo or astronomy observations.
The cheapest way know truth - only one. some quake. :-)





yes, we can made all analysis because bomb give us plenty of vapour, until it has a some pressure in cloud an using some kind os spectral analyses to see what throw up a explosion.




You forgot add IMHO.

Posted by: helvick Dec 5 2005, 09:03 PM

Sergey,

Dramatic idea but it is too complex and you'll need a lot more much bigger bombs. No single nuke built to date has the sort of yield you'd need and the 1 megaton crackers they build these days would barely scratch the surface.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/tekton/crater_c.html gives some handy ballpark figures for the amount of energy you'll need to be able to deliver to blast your way through.

Taking as an example a very small compact cometary fragment (50m diameter) hitting Europa at 45km/sec (probably a bit high as this is cometary velocity range at Mars orbit), the impact energy is ~15 Megatons. Crater diameter is 2.6km+- a km. Depth will be half that at most.
That's about the same energy as that of the highest yielding nuke the US has tested to date - Castle\Bravo at Bikini in 1954 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo. The USSR's Tsar Bomba yielded 50Megatons however that only adds about half a kilometer to the diameter.

The current estimates I've seen range from 10-40km. At best you'd need to deliver five or six Castle\Bravo class nukes with each successive "probe" requiring pretty awesone precision in order to "tunnel" down. If you just shotgun the surface you'll waste the energy, you'd have to deliver them to the bottom of the crater and as Doug pointed out you'd actually have to penetrate the surface in order to excavate any noticable amount.

It would be easier if you simply redirected a suitable comet. Trying out some numbers I reckon you'd need to find a 3km diameter comet. That would create a 60-100km crater that would probably punch through even a 40km Ice sheet. The energy involved is 3.4 million megatons give or take.

However since the point of the exercise would be to find life this would seem a bit silly since it would not only sterilise but would vapourise anything we were looking for.

And the Europans would be mightily upset.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 5 2005, 09:24 PM

I think that ice is not homogene, but mixed with water filled volumes. water practically unpressured liquid and wiil destroy some structure of ice.
Also ice can cracks.

Posted by: helvick Dec 5 2005, 09:59 PM

Not really. Ice can crack but it's actually a remarkably resilient mineral when you have to deal with it on the scale of mountains. The surface of Europa probably has a structure not dissimilar to Icebergs. The US Navy discovered this when they tested the idea of blowing up Icebergs to test if it was possible to destroy bergs threatening shipping lanes. They came to the conclusion fairly quickly that they'd need much bigger guns and gave up. http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/5225/ency/Chapter10/Ency_Oceans/Icebergs.pdf closes with this comment:

My emphasis.

Some bright folks have already done some research into this needless to mention. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/europa/thickice/ shows why they believe the crust is 19-25km deep. Crater formations on Europa demonstrate a morphological change when they exceed +- 30km diameter. Smaller craters follow the usual form expected for impacts into a solid structure, above that diameter something affects the structure and the hypothesis is that it is the crustal depth which would become relevant with craters around 30km diameter for 19km deep crust. That changes the size of my comet excavator a bit, reducing it to 1.25km diameter with a resulting yield of a quarter of a million megatons.

Still 5 orders of magnitude higher than the handful of megatons you proposed. The comet would be neat but since it would weigh ~1.3billion tons and is moving at 45km/sec it would be hard to steer.

Also to return to Doug's point. A surface\air blast will excavate very little. You need to bury your bombs. The first one you could possibly just send in any old how and hope for the best but the subsequent ones would have to come in vertically, that would be require lots of fuel and some very fancy flying.
http://einstein157.tripod.com/ states that approximately 16% of a surface blast goes into cratering\ground shock etc. It also lists some numbers for the destruction depth effects - the maximum depth of destruction for a 9Megaton surface detonation is ~180m.

You really are going to need bigger bombs.

Posted by: JRehling Dec 5 2005, 10:37 PM

I'm not sure where the problems in grammar end and the problems in logic begin here.

I don't know if by "some quake" you mean YOUR idea or any seismological study. Seismological studies are a good idea.

Spectral analysis of a thermonuclear explosion would not tell us which organic compounds existed before they had been incinerated. Someone could type a basic chemistry text into the thread at this point, or you could consult one offline.

This isn't IMHO. My opinion is humble, but these things are fact. The list works a lot better when the posters look up the basics and present each other with the thoughts that come to mind AFTER that.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 6 2005, 09:31 AM

On Earth we have a stone earthcrust.
It's very resilent material.
But, despite all, we have so many weak places - voulcanos, drifts, cracks, caves and hot magma can erupt to surface.
If Europa ice crust similar to the Earth crust - and it must be similar, we can find weak places in Europa, and we can weak them more. :-)
If here, on the Earth, instead magma we have water and low gravity, like on Europa, we'll be can to explore earth inner layers. ;-)




Its not a problem. Just dont brake bombs when it will fly to Europe.
50 km\sec of bomb velocity means that in time of ignition and some time after expolosion epicentre of bomb explosion fly past 0.5-1 km.

If we ignite bomb just over surface we get very hot, and very fast moving penetrating plasma ball with high ability to pierce any material in our world.

next point. In last termonukes hydrogene of water began burning, that gave addition yield, and yield of 100-mt class soviet bomb was reduced to half value, to prevent losing of control and BADA-BOOM of ocean water.
So, it very easy to gain to highest yields - we can just burn hydrogene of Europe ice, to achive ten or thousand Gt yields. gigatonns.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 6 2005, 09:52 AM

my idea is to use a compact and lightweight power sources for it. :-)



we dont speak about "organic compounds" now. We dont know even pH of european "water" - what about a sulfur acid? or some shit solved in water?
Before organic chemistry and "search of life" on radiation sterilized surface, we always need some simply analyses.
Is not a great idea to search life in sulfur acid.
first one we must get inside, and anylize that "water'. One way to it - termonukes.



We hav'nt any facts about Europa critical parametres.
about that "water'. Only Galileo zond fly past Europa many years ago, and some NASA 3d-pictures on NASA site, that lead to thinks "they never fly nowhere, just shot all in hollywood"

Posted by: Richard Trigaux Dec 6 2005, 11:02 AM

SergeyVLazarev,

I like very much your enthusiasm about using simple rugged probes and do things in an bold efficient way. But the idea of using nukes seems simply innacceptable for me, for many reason, that I shall not explain in details here, see the Greenpeace forum. Anyway, as others here explained, a high velocity impactor (or a series of several at different distance of only one seismometre) yelds largely enough power to test the inner structure of Europa, as it was tested on the Moon. A simple piece of metal (heated by a chemical reaction, so that it will self-sterilize before hitting) can be released by the main probe and do the job.
More, an atom bomb will produce a large cloud of steam and snow, a temporary atmosphere, as it was experienced with Deep Impact, which is likely to blurr all the observations.

Anyway the largest fireballs obtained to date with nukes are still much smaller than Europa crust.


Your remarks as what it is useless to search for life until we know the chemical composition of the water is relevant. But what is relevant too is that the first Europa lander is already many years ahead, so what to speak of a SECOND Europa lander! Likely most of us will not see it in our lifetime. So I think it is wiser to send something able to do chemical analysis AND life search (the best guess for the latest purpose are a microscope and some mass spectrometre). If the chemical analysis prove this water unsuitable for life, at least we know it. (But we do not know exactly what is "suitable for life", so a chemical analysis alone is not enough and will left dougts and hopes. What to conclude, for instance, if we find the PH of lemmon juice?

The only thing which could delay us is that we need to know WHERE to land, and aim precisely. With my opinion there are just many places to land (everywhere where there is reddish ice) but I doubt there will be a rover for the first landing (why not?) so that we must know PRECISELY where to land. This could be done at time of the 6 preleminary close encounters with Europa, before actually landing.


I guess, after your name, that you may be Russian (welcome!) so I risk some question: what could be a Russian participation to such a mission? (My idea is that probes will have to be more and more international, for various technical, political and philosophical reasons, and just consider childish the idea of a probe being the flagship of ONE country). Russian hardware has a reputation of being simple and rugged (at least what was not spoiled by blunders in the "soviet" era).


Important note added afterward (a bit after Tuesday December 6, 04:07 PM)
This thread was initially in a thread about Europa orbiter. This thread was moved to "nuking Europa" afterward. But I would have never involved in such a thread knowing this new title!

Posted by: helvick Dec 6 2005, 11:03 AM

OK sergey, we've tried to humor you but you're not getting with the programme. The idea is dramatic and fun to consider for a couple of minutes but any half way serious thinking shows that it is silly and your final comment is heading into woowoo territory.

None of your numbers add up, you don't seem to want to think about the technicalities and in the end seem to have no idea what scientific data you are trying to get.

I'll continue the discussion if you want to make some serious suggestions but if wild assed conjecture is all you want, sorry that's not my bag.

BTW for the record. The Tsar Bomba was restricted to 50MT from ~100MT by replacing the uranium fast fission third stage in the design with lead in order to reduce fallout, it was not because of fear of a hydrogen fusion reaction.

A mission with seismometers would be a damn fine idea but you don't need to blow away half the side of the moon to get the data, just leave them in situ and listen. At most you might want to schedule a small impact (a cruise stage should do) if mission duration was a constraint. Otherwise natural impacts and other events will provide more than enough "quake" samples.

Posted by: Richard Trigaux Dec 6 2005, 11:20 AM

This post was duplicated/replaced in its proper context http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1415&st=75&p=30140& If you want to reply please follow this link, do not reply here.


Here
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1647
was dicussed the idea of using unconventionnal electronics to sustain the high temperatures (460°C) at the surface of Venus.

There was mainly three methods proposed:
-unconventionnal semiconductors
-micro-sized vacuum tubes implemented witht he techniques of integrated circuits
-micro-sized electrostatic relays

I note that the two latest proposals are also suited to resist to high radioactivity levels, so that they will be a good solution for a Europa orbiter (and even a Io orbiter) by increasing reliability and removing the weigh of shielding.

Developing such techniques will need only a series of small scale test, and then after a relatively short period of large scale development, in a total duration which is not uncompatible with the launching of the mission.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 6 2005, 12:37 PM

I think, that way of progress inavodably bring to space nukes, military forces.
I m thinking also that one exclusive way for humanity to explore solar system - IS PERMANENT MILITARY OPPOSITION of main states.
Only military use of space can bring to space gigadollars of money.
One way to colonize Selen - 2 opposing military bases with recruits.

Without military we lose space.




we ll put it sequenatally.



its just my IMHO. Im not NASA chairman even im not working in that area.
But I know that space require great energy and great money.




in that case we must to build acid-resilant hardware. :-) and I think that no life in acid.





I'm russian by culture and language, but live in Ukraine, and havnt deal with Russia space program, so is not question for me.

From soviet space program I have only some wreckedges of hardware: some littlle solar panels from Soyuz, model of Selen landing module from selen program of 70-years and some acsesouiries like magnesia fuse boxes and photos from Salute space staion with soviet cosmonauts signatures.

I widely greet all international space programs, but I'm think that Russia now must concetrating on Clipper, new Soyuz-rocket, Angara, and sattellites.
dispersing of eforts on 2 or 3 branches - is not good idea.

Posted by: Richard Trigaux Dec 6 2005, 01:24 PM

EEEERRRRR

Sorry Sergey, I think a bit like helvick now. On this forum there are a lot of discutions which are rather philosophical than technical, and inavoidingly disagreements are expressed. But this, I think, goes too far.


I am not an incorrigible optimist, but I think that we CAN eradicate war and that we MUST put all our efforts to achieve this. Space exploration is part of this game. And anyway, now that there is no more USSR, which opposition are you speaking about? USA-Europe? We are not building Europe for that.

Or, if there must be war is space, I will rather send all the war-mongers together in one big station so that they will make their sport there and stop killing innocent people here on Earth.

Good bye, Sergey.

Posted by: ugordan Dec 6 2005, 01:49 PM

As someone once said: "Your idea is so very incorrect, it's not even wrong!" You obviously need to do a little historic research as well as read some introductions to fusion physics. The idea of a hydrogen bomb igniting the hydrogen in the water itself is purely a myth. Period.
The 50 Mt Soviet "Tsar Bomba" was reduced in yield only to prevent a catastrophic increase in total world fission fallout since the beginning of nuclear testing era. It alone would have increased the fallout by some 25 %. That's the reason the fusion stage uranium jackets were replaced by lead, cutting the yield in half, perhaps even to a third of nominal, yet proving the design. The bomb by all means was not detonated in water, it (along with the majority of the other soviet bombs) was detonated several kilometers above the ground over the Novaya Zemlya peninsula.

I won't even go into discussion on how you're gonna take a 30 ton heavy 100 Mt bomb to Europa. That's certainly beyond any capability in the near future.

EDIT: Ahhh... I see helvick already pointed out the reason they reduced the yield on Tsar... Sorry to repeat the reason, must pay more attention to other peoples' posts in the future...

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 6 2005, 02:13 PM

it was 2 practical causes to reduce yield:
1. Seismic - cause explosion on surface or near could damage poligon
2. Weight of airborne bomb to fit it in bomb bay.
And 1 teoretical - to prevent possible and foreseen thermonuclear burning of water.



If you dont like this idea - just dont disscuss it.
If you so great man, dont get low to such silly things.

Posted by: ugordan Dec 6 2005, 02:28 PM

1. The polygon WAS there to be bombed the hell out of in the first place. I fail to see the reason for testing the most powerful bomb EVER and at the same time trying not to hurt the polygon too much.
2. The bomb weighed 27 metric tons regardless of whether it was a full yield, 100 Mt version or a scaled down 50 Mt version. The scaled down version merely had all its uranium in the 2nd and 3rd stage fusion jacket replaced by a jacket of lead which weighed the same, but was for all other purposes inert.

What part of the fact that the bomb was detonated at a 4 kilometers altitude, over land do you not get? Even if it detonated in the middle of the ocean, nothing extraordinary would happen. That is, apart from the fact several million tons of water and ocean bottom would be blown sky-high.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 6 2005, 02:52 PM

1. estimated yield was 50 and 100 Mgt.
2. real yield was 57-62 Mgt.
3. bomb was detonated on 4000 m altitude.
4. all veterans says that radioactivity wasnt cause of reducing yield.
5. Sakharov's myth about reducing yield for lowering carbon-14 fallout - it a really myth. Untill 1962 Sakharov dont take in mind this.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Dec 6 2005, 02:56 PM

While I would prefer not to see the human race spread its baser elements into the wider Cosmos, I think Mr. Lazarev is simply trying to be a pragmatist, but without the PC filter so common in the West these days.

Kind of refreshing, actually.

And lest we totally whitewash the past history of the Space Age, it was mainly founded and built upon military rockets originally designed to deliver bombs to wipe out the "enemy". V-2s, anyone?

Had we tried to get the Space Age going simply on the noble causes of science, I bet we'd only have a few utilitarian satellites by now and maybe some deep space probes to the nearer worlds, if we were lucky. Apollo would never have left the science fiction pages without the Cold War. And that computer you are using to read this right now - guess what spurred its development decades ago?

As he said, if you don't like his ideas, then ignore what he wrote. It wasn't a personal attack on anyone here anyway. There is enough of a lack of international diplomacy on the political front without doing it here as well.

Posted by: SergeyVLazarev Dec 6 2005, 03:11 PM

its your right. but its was real case, it is not western myth based on Sakharov lies about "prevent pollutions" and "save lifes". Sakharov with Chrushchov never think about this, like their american enemies.




initially superbomb must weight 40 tons.
but wasnt bomber for such weight. bomb was lighten.
Had been made mockup of bomb - 20 tons, but real bomb weight approximately 24-26 tons. Informations from pilots of Tu-95V. 27 tonn - its only capability of 3 bomb locks Дер5-6, each of them takes 9 tons.

Posted by: ugordan Dec 6 2005, 04:07 PM

1. That's what I said.

2. That figure was estimated by the U.S. and their analysis of the fallout cloud. They overestimated the yield and naturally, the Soviets weren't exactly going to jump up and say: "Hey, you overestimated the power of the largest bomb in the world! It wasn't really THAT powerful!". Especially since Kruschev wanted to have THE most powerful bomb.
The real figure, 50 megatons was released only in 1991, after breakup of the Soviet Union. In any case, I don't see your point on nit-picking of the actual yield. This discussion was about punching through Europa's ice and several megatons more or less don't make any difference.

3. That's what I said.

4. What would "veterans" have to know about the real cause? Perhaps it was concern for the flight crew? They were very nearly killed as is. Perhaps it was concern that the bomb would break windows in half the Europe. Or, perhaps 50 megatons of fission products released at once were horrifying enough that in the end common sense prevailed. The result, by the way, was the cleanest bomb ever detonated, with 97% of the yield due to fusion reactions.

5. Nobody's talking about C-14. I'm talking about several tons of highly radioactive fission product "soup".

In any case, this has gone way off topic. Either Doug will move this to a more appropriate topic (though I see no point in doing that) or this will be my last word on this.

Posted by: JRehling Dec 6 2005, 04:43 PM

Incidentally, in the case we would ever want to seismically thump Europa to give a lander already on the surface something to detect, the obvious way to do this would be to have the lander and impactor arrive on similar trajectories, with the lander well in advance.

A macro-strategy I have mentioned would be to have a lander in place when an impactor thumps a nearby location, creating a seismic event of known size. At the same time, an Icepick free-return sample return craft in solar orbit flies over, collecting (atomized) samples that are blasted up. The set of three craft would give us a lander, some local seismic data in decent detail, imagery from the impactor as it closed in, sample returns (heavily shocked) and any data the flyby craft could gather. Certainly, an expensive trio of craft, but an intensive set of investigations had all at once.

It occurred to me that an alternative (see above: "obvious way") would be to have the impactor follow a radically different trajectory than the flyby craft and have it go *the other way* around Jupiter (clockwise, as seen from north) while the flyby craft would go clockwise. This would add to the kinetic energy of the impact event considerably (perhaps 13 km/s), which would mean that less mass could achieve the same sized impact. However, if the goal were to have an Icepick flyby, this design would present considerable engineering constraints on the surface location. If the only goal were to have a seismic lander and an impactor, then the restrictions would be less.

If it were possible to fly a free-return flyby craft also going clockwise around Jupiter, then the constraints are lifted greatly.

That is a feasible mission for hitting Europa and studying its surface. The value of the impact, incidentally, is in delivering a known thump to the areas very near the lander. Presumably, knowing the crustal thickness/structure at a chosen location is a worthy goal -- having a general knowledge of the thickness of the crust, with less detail, is probably far less desirable. As Bob Pappalardo et al have shown, the thickness has to be fairly uniform, by and large.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Dec 6 2005, 05:59 PM

Nuke Europa? You aren't thinking grand enough.

Drop Europa on Mars, then send a mission to analyze the debris while making a new world for humanity to live on without space suits and pressure domes.

http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/larryniven/niven_wet_mars_000710.html

How to move Europa? A series of impacts to knock it into a gravitational swingby of Jupiter to accelerate it to Mars faster. If Europa breaks up from the impact, just attach rockets onto the pieces and direct them to Mars.

Why not just grab some already smaller NEO comets, you say? Ah, what fun is that?

Of course if we decide instead to use Europa for material to make the Dyson Shell, we can study the interior then, which will no doubt be in better shape than just smashing it into Mars.

http://www.alcyone.com/max/writing/essays/outside-dyson-shells.html

http://www.merzo.net/500000kmpp.htm

Posted by: Bob Shaw Dec 6 2005, 09:40 PM

We *mustn't* nuke Europa.

The big oblong guys wouldn't like it, oh no.

All the rest of the worlds are ours, though...

Bob Shaw

Posted by: RNeuhaus Dec 6 2005, 10:56 PM

IMHO, it is not necesarry to use nuke on Europe but, much better, it might be overcome with a well designed the layout of sesismic structure and points and using sophisticated seismic instruments with enough sensibility to percibe any land echos or vibrations.

On the other hand, the Moon is somewhat bigger than Europe Moon and the mission of Apollo has utilized several sesimic test without a nuke. Why do nuke instead of impact of penetrators to Europe?

I might be wrong with that and the nuke is okay if that it is the only ONE solution but without any harm to anything of the Europe moon.

Anyway, we must try the universe with the minimal harm or impact.

Using a brute force with a nuke is like a signal of pedrator.

Rodolfo

Posted by: mike Dec 7 2005, 12:56 AM

Face it, nuclear explosions look really neat. All that stuff vaporized into nothing. It's what life is all about.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Dec 7 2005, 03:45 AM

Well I'm having a hoot reading this thread. As both a people watcher, and a wiseguy I find this highly entertaining.

I can imagine a comedy sketch where a bunch of sterotypical academic scientist types (taking themselves much too seriously) are standing around a Christmas party sipping eggnog and talking about planetary satellites as a guy walks in in a millitary uniform with a Russian accent suggesting that we nuke the moons of Jupiter. The Greenpeace guy falls over dead from the very thought, everyone starts shouting and grumbling and the Russian guy takes off his shoe and starts pounding on the table.

I could have a lot of fun with that one.

However since we are on the topic I could imagine in the not too distant future,.a nuclear powered ice-boring vehicle that heats itself up as it dives through the several miles of ice, unrealing a communications line as it goes.

Posted by: edstrick Dec 7 2005, 09:03 AM

"Face it, nuclear explosions look really neat. All that stuff vaporized into nothing. It's what life is all about"

For them as don't know they exist: "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie", and "Nukes in Space", plus others. Restored footage of atomic tests in the atmosphere and space, narrated (quite well) by William Shatner and with the musical soundtrack recorded by (boggle) The Moscow Philharmonic.

http://www.vce.com/trinity.html
(and go to the homepage for the other movies)

Posted by: Bill Harris Dec 7 2005, 09:38 AM

No, no, no. We thought about doing that in the 1950's, '60's, '70's and '80's and that really bummed people out for 40 years, especially the Europeans. Nukes in Cuba in the 1960's lead to some weird times for us kids, too.

And a Bob Shaw notes, we don't need to annoy the monolith people.



Edstrick, thanks for that link to the a-bomb site. There is something compelling about bomb movies. "Those children" unleashed a horrible power.

--Bill

Posted by: ljk4-1 Dec 7 2005, 01:11 PM

When you've got supernovae and hypernovae that can vaporize and sterilize many light years of a galaxy, do you really think a couple of our nukes are going to even be noticed by the wider Universe?

Posted by: tedstryk Dec 7 2005, 02:43 PM

I am definitely against this one Europa is another story, but lets not nuke Europe.

Posted by: ugordan Dec 7 2005, 02:47 PM

Agreed! Some of my best friends (including me!) are in Europe!

Posted by: RNeuhaus Dec 7 2005, 03:28 PM

Sorry. Translate: Europe to Moon of Europe.

Rodolfo

Posted by: ugordan Dec 7 2005, 03:30 PM

I didn't know we (the europeans) had a moon!

Posted by: RNeuhaus Dec 7 2005, 03:36 PM

Opps, a much bigger depratator than a nuke, the supernovoa...or whatever else (GRB) However, I was thinking to take care to the "Moon of Europe" as our future colony.
| I realice that the Europe moon would not be habitable due to the high radiation coming from Jupiter.

Rodolfo

P.D. Re-edited "|"

Posted by: Omega Dec 7 2005, 05:05 PM

Yeah, woo-hoo, nukes! EEEEERRRRRNNNNTTT!!!! [gameshow wrong-answer buzzer]


The best way possible to kill any lifeforms which might be there.

Think before you post.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Dec 7 2005, 05:12 PM

If Europan life can survive being on a moon which is constantly bathed in the very intense radiation from Jupiter, a few tiny nuke bombs from Earth aren't going to phase them much, certainly as a whole. And with 60 miles deep of an ocean girdling a globe the size of Earth's Moon, I doubt we could kill them all if we tried.

But just to clarify, I am not advocating nuking Europa on the grounds that it wouldn't do any real good in terms of opening up the ice crust to exploration of the ocean underneath. A well-aimed space rock, on the other hand....

Posted by: gndonald Dec 27 2005, 03:59 PM

Your quite right, the footage in "Trinity & Beyond" is quite spectacular, especially the bravura ending with the Chinese cavalry charging a mushroom cloud on horses in NBC suits.

But as for the idea of using nuclear charges to excavate Europa, forget it, simply exploding the charges on the surface would not excavate deep enough, you'd have to place the device in a shaft and then you would have to deal with the radiation contaminating the samples.

That was the problem that affected the 'Plowshare' gas stimulation experiments (see Peter Kurans http://www.vce.com/journeys.html).

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 7 2006, 04:12 PM

I found this quote and I just had to add it here, if nothing else perhaps
to help further explain the old Communist "grand" view of existence.

This is from Mao regarding nuclear war on Earth:

"...this might be a big thing for the solar system, but it would still be an insignificant matter as far as the universe as a whole is concerned."

Taken from the New York Times book review of his biography Mao by Jung Chang and Jon
Halliday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/books/review/23cover.html?8bu&emc=bu

Posted by: punkboi Apr 7 2006, 06:09 PM

I skimmed through it.

Wow. Simply...wow.

Posted by: GregM Apr 7 2006, 06:17 PM

.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 7 2006, 08:49 PM

GregM:

You'd not want to pollute the precious bodily fluids of the Europans, oh no.

Although I have to admit that your images of Mr Pickens did make me want to emit a loud whoop!

Hehe.

Bob Shaw

Posted by: mchan Apr 8 2006, 01:56 AM

GregM

That doesn't look like La Puta!

Posted by: edstrick Apr 8 2006, 10:12 AM

Peace on Europa, Purity of Essence.

Posted by: mchan Apr 8 2006, 05:44 PM

Hmm, I wonder what the fluoride levels in Europa's oceans are.

Posted by: Richard Trigaux Apr 8 2006, 08:28 PM

MAKE OBS, NOT WAR

Posted by: GravityWaves Apr 10 2006, 02:57 AM

Let me also say I find the idea of exploring Europa with Nuke bombs completely ridiculous, I'm actually a fan of nuclear power but some of the fanatic nuclear-nuts clearly have a few screws loose. Not only are some of us now considering to perhaps put life on Earth in danger through foreign xenobilogy and failing to adequetely secure our sample return missions from Space ( Genesis going smash ) we also have people proposing we use thermonuclear bombs to eradicate life on Europa before we find it